


And I'm ready to suffer, and I'm ready to hope

by dollsome



Series: before the dawn {or : the post-4.09 AU Gwen and Morgana reunion saga} [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-14
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-07 18:25:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/434044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollsome/pseuds/dollsome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen begins again in Ealdor. Morgana follows her. (A sequel to <i>And I am done with my graceless heart</i>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> I was still curious about what might happen to the girls after that first story, so here, let's find out. :) (WHO NEEDETH CANON?)

**Part I**  
  
  
 _Morgana_  
  
  
Gwen leaves, and you begin to wander from yourself.  
  
It seems Agravaine is forever at your door. It bothers you now as it didn’t before. The man was never by any means your ideal companion, but his eagerness to serve you had a certain pitiful charm. You sometimes used to muse over just how far he might go to please you. Would he chop off a finger? It seemed fitting enough, since you had him so wrapped around yours.  
  
An arm, perhaps?  
  
You’ve always been ambitious.  
  
Until now. Now, he comes bearing Camelot’s secrets, and you might as well be underwater, for all his words mean to you. You stare at his face, counting the lines around his eyes, not minding his voice at all. _Here he is,_ you think. _Your one companion. The only person in the world who would rather have you alive than dead._  
  
It was so much easier to bear when you knew for certain it was the truth.  
  
“Milady?”  
  
You try to look as if you haven’t been caught. You sit up taller, like the queen he so worships.  
  
“You seem … distracted,” he ventures. “Ever since—….”  
  
He trails off. Not that brave.  
  
“Ever since?” you prompt sharply.  
  
“Ever since we apprehended Arthur’s servant girl.”  
  
That ‘we’ burrows into you, a squirming hateful thing. “You know very well what her name is.”  
  
He chuckles. “Is it really worth knowing?”  
  
You would like very much to slam him to the wall with nothing but your rage. The sound of his skull cracking against stone would be immeasurably sweet.  
  
He reads this in your look. He may have stars in his eyes for you, but he isn’t entirely foolish, and knows you are to be feared. After all, everyone who’s ever made the mistake to love you has suffered.  
  
“Guinevere,” he mumbles, chastened.  
  
You like that less. Him speaking her name.  
  
“Tell me, Agravaine,” you say, putting on your finest disdain, “did you come here to discuss servant girls? How touched I am, to know you value my time so highly.”  
  
He doesn’t take the hint, for once. He looks serious, disapproving even; you see a flash of the stern father in his face, and want to smash it out. “What became of her?”  
  
“I got rid of her, of course.” He will take it to mean that you killed her.  
  
He does, without even a moment’s dismay. Perhaps he doesn’t know how you loved her once. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter if he did. He certainly wouldn’t believe you capable of it now. “Arthur will not be pleased to hear that.”  
  
“Arthur threw her to the big cruel world like scraps to the dogs. He’s forfeited his right to be displeased.”  
  
“Just because he forsook the girl doesn’t mean he won’t avenge her. He will loathe you now like never before.” The firelight seems to spell your doom out on his face. “Kill you, if he can.”  
  
“Let him try,” you say. Agravaine smirks, thinking it a threat. Really, you are only tired, so tired. You would let him try. Maybe you’d even let him win.  
  
  
  
 _Gwen_  
  
Merlin’s mother welcomes you kindly, even though you don’t offer much explanation. You tell her only that you wished to see the world beyond Camelot; she can see the hints of heartbreak in you, no doubt, but she is kind enough never to remark upon them. She offers you a hot meal and Merlin’s old bed. The villagers are good people; they seem to remember you from years before, when you fought to defend Ealdor at Arthur’s side.  
  
You want to work, more than anything, and fortunately, there’s no shortage of help to give. There is a little bit of everything that always needs to be done, from cooking to helping build a new chicken coop to minding the gardens to minding the children.  
  
That’s what you’re doing on the afternoon that the past comes back to haunt you. You’ve volunteered to do a bit of mending for Hunith’s next door neighbors, and to teach the youngest girl of the house, Alice, how to sew.  
  
The girl is newly seven (and already shows more prowess with a needle than Morgana did at twelve), and chatters merrily to you about every aspect of Ealdor life. When she exhausts the subject, she turns to your life, a too-sudden switch you’re not ready for. “You know King Arthur?”  
  
“Very well,” you say, smiling a little. It seems the proper retaliation against the sudden pain.  
  
“Is he handsome?”  
  
“Yes,” you say, and think of him as he was: golden and good and maddening. A boy who listened to you, instead of a man who branded you a whore and stood stony-faced as you cried your heart out. “Though just between you and me, he does make some very funny faces.”  
  
Alice giggles, pleased at the idea. “What about the lady Morgana?”  
  
You jab yourself in the finger. A tiny bead of blood rises up. “What about her?”  
  
“You knew her as well. You must have. People talk sometimes about it, that she was here when you all came to save us. And secretly, she just wanted to kill us all the while, and eat our hearts!”  
  
“That’s not true,” you say, more sharply than you should to a child.  
  
“It’s not?” Alice says, her face clearly daring you to prove it.  
  
Making sure to soften your tones, you continue, “For one thing, she eats proper food, not hearts. For another, she was very different then. She wanted to defend the village just as much as any of us.”  
  
“Well, that’s what she wanted you to think,” Alice reasons, very practically.  
  
There is no way to explain what Morgana meant to you – what the memory of her still means. (What she still means, sitting alone in that dark hell of a hovel, falling apart without any hope of ever being put back together again.) You decide it’s wisest not to try. “No. No, she was not a liar.”  
  
“Then what happened?”  
  
If only you could tidy it into a sentence.  
  
“A lot of very bad things happened to her,” you say at last, thinking of Morgana’s face and voice (too hard, breaking underneath) as the pair of you worked in the garden and she spelled out the sins Camelot has committed against her. “And …”  
  
“And?”  
  
You take a breath. “And those bad things broke her.”  
  
“Hmm,” Alice says, clearly unsympathetic. “Has she ever tried to kill you?”  
  
You decide not to answer that one quite truthfully. But you do give her a piece of the truth: “She saved me, the last time I saw her.”  
  
“Saved you?” Alice frowns, good and perplexed now. “Are you sure it was her?”  
  
“Yes,” you say. “Yes, I’m sure.”  
  
  
  
 _Morgana_  
  
You have not touched the bracelet since Gwen left. It remains on the table, mocking you; you’ve gone to war with yourself, and do not know how to win. You barely sleep. You wake up crying, the visions an exhausting jumbled mess that means nothing. Your heart pounds like it’s trying to fly out of your chest. To escape you – you, the worst prison any heart could have.  
  
  
  
 _Gwen_  
  
Your sleep is sound and dreamless, once you fall into it; it’s the falling part that’s the problem. Guilt prods at you from all angles, keeping you awake. You don’t want to remember Arthur as he was at the last – shouting at you, shaking your shoulders. You know now, very well, that you were not to blame, but God, it felt impossible to believe in anything besides your guilt as you stood with him in the near-dark, watching your life end as the love ebbed from his face. The guilt lingers even now that you know it has no business haunting you.  
  
Then there is the thing you should feel guilty for: Agravaine. You know he is a traitor now, and still, you walked away from Camelot instead of returning to tell Arthur. (Arthur, who has already suffered so many betrayals.) You reason that perhaps your time with Morgana will soften her resolve against the kingdom, in spite of what she said. But there is no guarantee of that, and you know it.  
  
You share all your meals with Hunith, you chat with her by the fire and sleep under her roof, and all the while you leave a traitor in her son’s midst. And yet you think of all the men you left behind – Elyan, doing nothing; Merlin, silent as he watched you go. You were his first friend in Camelot, long before Arthur deigned to like him.  
  
Morgana wanders into your thoughts in moments like these. You are beginning to understand, like you never have before, just what pulled her away all those years ago. It is easy to be loyal when you’re loved for it.  
  
When you’re despised for something you didn’t do, or couldn’t help, loyalty to those who hate you feels curiously like betraying yourself.  
  
You fall asleep wishing you had never left her, wondering (in spite of yourself) if she misses you. You think she might. The wind outside and the faint creaks of the cottage walls are almost like shy footsteps. You know they are only night sounds, but wish – just for a moment – that they were her instead.  
  
  
+  
  
  
Hunith shakes you awake in the morning. Her face is solemn and tear-streaked, and you know at once that something has gone terribly wrong.  
  
“You must come,” she says numbly. “It’s Alice.”  
  
You put on a shawl and follow her to the next cottage. A number of villagers have already gathered inside. Not a single one of them speaks. The silence digs right into your bones.  
  
Alice sits upright in a chair, her posture very good. She stares with vague, soulless interest around the room. There is nothing of the spark that makes her Alice in her eyes.  
  
“She won’t say anything,” says her father, his voice thick with pain. “She won’t talk, and doesn’t seem to know us. It must be – it can only be—”  
  
“Magic,” says her mother, in a flat dying tone.  
  
You remember the footsteps you blamed on the wind and the walls last night. You, who have faced magic countless times and should know better. Fresh new guilt settles into you.  
  
  
  
 _Morgana_  
  
You dream of Gwen: Gwen braiding your hair; Gwen crying as Arthur yells; Gwen talking to a little girl, assuring her that you do not eat hearts; and then, it goes horribly wrong—  
  
Gwen standing in a green field, blank-eyed and still, breathing but soulless. Hollowed out. _Come out, come out, Emrys,_ says some dark thing with her voice.  
  
You do not wake up crying this time.  
  
“ _No_ ,” you say instead, feeling younger and more awake than you have in years.  
  
You don’t know what it is, this thing that has emptied her, but you know that you’ll be damned if this nightmare comes true. Emrys has taken enough. Whatever enemies he has angered, they cannot have Gwen. You will kill them first, and him too, to make sure. Between Arthur and you, Gwen has suffered enough. If anyone in this miserable world deserves peace, it’s her. You will play the white knight this time, never mind your black heart.  
  
You leave a note on your table for Agravaine – _I have important business to see to._ – and set off for Ealdor before the sun has even risen in the sky.


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwen and Morgana reunite. It's not exactly hearts and flowers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This appears to want to be longer than I originally intended. Let's see how that goes.
> 
> And! This chapter contains an oblique reference to my story [This young war will war for years](http://archiveofourown.org/works/263842). It's not by any means required reading in order to get what's going on, but check it out if you feel like fully appreciating the whole deranged Morgana experience. ;-)

**Part II**  
  
  
 _Gwen_  
  
Alice stays quiet, and a shadow falls over Ealdor. You came here seeking peace; ruin trailed along after you, constant as a faithful friend. You remind yourself again and again that this is not your fault – how could it be? How could you have done it? – but you aren’t quite sure. After all, the last time magic had its claws in you, you were none the wiser.  
  
Of course, you think of Morgana. Wonder if she might have sent a curse after you, and you were so relieved to see the slight broken traces of your old friend that you didn’t even suspect her until it was too late.  
  
You feel, down deep, that this isn’t the truth, but what good has feeling done you so far?  
  
“We must send word to Merlin,” Hunith says absently, the two of you sitting by the fire one bleak evening. The words are little more than a whisper; a thought that escaped.  
  
You know that Merlin is an essential ingredient in most of Arthur’s heroics, and that, thanks to the two of them, nothing so very bad has befallen Camelot and stayed. Still, you can’t imagine how he might go about fighting this magic that none of you even know how to name. He is only a man, after all, and what hope does a man have against such a foe?  
  
 _Unless._ The word dawns in you, unbidden. Along with it comes all of Merlin’s odd silences, his silences and the sad wisdom that lurks behind his young eyes, his knack for always, always being in the right place at the right time—  
  
Hunith seems to catch herself.  
  
“You yearn for the ones you love,” she adds, with the smoothness of someone very accustomed to lying. “In times like these.”  
  
“Of course,” you murmur, docile, your mind on fire.  
  
  
  
 _Morgana_  
  
You reach Ealdor in what feels like no time at all; you’re so focused upon arriving that the whole journey seems a blur. You do not eat much, save for a distracted bite of something or other when lightheadedness sets in. With the village visible on the horizon, exhaustion suddenly catches up to you. Even standing seems a triumph.  
  
You push on. You aren’t about to let weakness become a habit.  
  
You remember where Hunith lives, and hope you can make it there unbothered. No such luck. (But then, you had expected as much. You are prepared for the situation – all you need to do is reach into your pocket.) There is a tense, frightened pulse in the air that lets you know something has beaten you here. You are halfway to the cottage when a pair of men intercepts you. They both look the worse for wear, but one wears such raw anguish on his face that you know the cause of this silence must be a matter close to his heart.  
  
“Stop,” says the less suffering one. “What’s your business here?”  
  
“I have a friend residing in your village,” you say. You use the word to give them less reason to fear you, but it still feels peculiar to say, like a taste you had nearly forgotten. “Gwen. She told me she would be staying with Hunith.”  
  
“Lower your hood,” commands the broken man.  
  
“I only want to see Gwen,” you say, biting back fury. You could knock them unconscious in seconds with the slightest lift of your hand. Insolent idiots, infected with tyranny just as all men are, expecting that just because you are a woman you couldn’t tear them to bits as easy as breathing—  
  
They watch you, their faces wary and distrusting and a little afraid. Afraid of you, who have done nothing to them. Good. They ought to be. They can feel it on you, without even seeing your face.  
  
But there is no point in toiling with peasants. Not with Gwen in danger, and so close. It’s ridiculous to let these two men stand in between you. You can play nice just as well as anyone. You doubt they will remember you, anyway. You were only a soldier of Arthur’s. Only a girl. And so you comply, and lower your hood.  
  
“Morgana Pendragon,” breathes one of them, proving you wrong.  
  
“Please—” You say it without thinking, and hate the word as soon as it slips from your mouth.  
  
The sadder man wastes no time in threatening you. You can tell he means every word. “You made a grave mistake showing your face here, witch. You think you can curse our people, our children, and then breeze in as if we’ll bend at the knee to you? Woman, every one of us will go down fighting before we let you—”  
  
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you snarl. “You think I’d waste my efforts on a village?”  
  
“I think there’s no low a killer of kings wouldn’t sink to!”  
  
They are only two men, and though you know you shouldn’t kill them (they are husbands and fathers, there are women and children who will cry for them), you would like to so much that it aches in you. The magic begs like the hands of an ardent wooer, wandering, wandering—  
  
“And not only kings,” you begin, when—  
  
“Morgana?” She steps out of the cottage, your impossible destination, with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders.  
  
“Gwen.” Your knees give up at the sight of her. So does your anger; suddenly, the men are only men, small in their suffering and not worth anything but your pity. The ground is hard and dirty beneath you, but might as well be feathers and down, for how badly you’d like to stay there. Never rise again.  
  
Their voices swim in your head:  
  
“Gwen, what is the meaning of this?”  
  
“You led a witch right to us?”  
  
“No,” Gwen says, calm but very firm. She sinks onto the ground beside you, steering your head to her shoulder. “She did not do this.”  
  
“What?” you ask, your voice damnably faint. “What’s happened?”  
  
“Of course she did! My daughter is cursed, and days later a sorceress shows up by coincidence? What else are we to believe?”  
  
“Look at her,” Gwen says, as if she’s scolding children. “Does she really look like she’s in a state to harm anyone?”  
  
You glare at her with what strength you have left – for the past few years, you have considered yourself in an eternally fit state to harm anyone, thanks very much – and she answers with an ‘oh, don’t be difficult’ roll of her eyes.   
  
“What happened?” you demand.  
  
“A little girl in the village has fallen under some sort of magic,” Gwen explains. She runs her fingers through your hair, as if it’s still a habit. You feel it keenly. You remind yourself to breathe. “We don’t know what it might be. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. She’s stopped talking. Stopped looking at anyone as if she knows them. It’s like she’s just been—”  
  
“Hollowed out,” you finish.  
  
She frowns slightly. Her fingers still; she seems to realize what she’s doing at last, and pulls her hand back. You knew she would. “How did you—”  
  
“I dreamed it. I dreamed it, and I came to help—”  
  
“What is she talking about?” demands the slightly calmer man, looking at you as if he’s prepared to run for the nearest pitchfork at your slightest movement.  
  
“You’re dreaming again?” Gwen says, with a peculiar expression on her face.  
  
You feel suddenly, absurdly shy, and find you cannot stand it, her staring at you like that.  
  
“I’ll cure her,” you say instead, in big bold Morgana tones, and force yourself up out of the comfort of her lap.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Take me to her,” you instruct the men; the world whooshes as you force yourself to your feet. “I’ll do everything I can. If it is in my power—”  
  
The broken man lets out a short, ugly laugh. “Like hell.”  
  
“I don’t kill children for sport!”  
  
He looks at you as if he can see clear into your rotten heart. “But you kill them for other reasons?”  
  
It stings, though it shouldn’t. They are only words, words from a callous fool twisted by grief; you remind yourself that he does not know you, does not know anything you’ve done. And besides, he’s one to talk. He, who would do anything to bring his daughter back. The ugliest things are the ones done for love.  
  
“You think me quite the monster, don’t you?” you ask – tilting your head just so, turning your voice pretty and jeering. It is not so different from talking to Arthur.  
  
You find yourself quite eager for his reply, but he does not give you one. Instead, he turns his wrath upon Gwen. “Conspiring with a witch – bringing her here – why, you’ve had us all quite fooled, haven’t you?”  
  
Gwen’s face turns – not sad, exactly. Pained. Desperate. You remember that it was not so long ago that she must have stood before Arthur and listened to tales of her duplicity. “Alec, I didn’t—”  
  
“Liar,” the father snarls, and takes a step, an ugly lunging step toward Gwen.  
  
You have no idea what he means to do, but you do know that it makes you sick, seeing only that one step. And so, without thought, easy as anything, you lift a hand and send him flying. He lands with a heavy thud some fifteen feet away. His friend looks at you as if you are the devil itself; it freezes him. Coward.  
  
“Morgana!” Gwen shouts. The shout, or perhaps the thud, draws people out from their little sanctuaries. The voices start, fluttering like birds, persistent, closer, above and around you, ready to tangle their talons in your hair, to beat their wings into your heart, to peck out your eyes and the last bits of your soul, which they cannot have, not those, they’ve been promised to someone else—  
  
“What have you done?” cries someone, a woman, rushing to the side of the man you threw. Ah, there’s the mother. Your heart aches for her, and admires her; she sounds dignified, somehow, in her sorrow. Not high-voiced and weeping and womanish.  
  
“Gwen’s brought here here,” says the frozen man, melting at last, his voice too loud.  
  
You remember your pocket, just in time: a vial filled with six drops of clear liquid. You damn your hands as they fumble – but no matter. You get there just in time. You pull the stopper out, and murmur the right words.  
  
For one clean second, the village, the horizon, the sky goes white.  
  
  
 _Gwen_  
  
You could kill her.  
  
Well, all right, no, you couldn’t. But you could certainly hit her. Hard.  
  
“What were you thinking??” you hiss, grabbing Morgana’s elbow as you usher her toward Hunith’s cottage. The villagers of Ealdor watch you go, but it’s with hopeful and unfrightened interest.  
  
“Essence of letheroot. It’s harmless. Only enough to make them forget they’ve heard anything of me since I was here last. As far as the people of Ealdor know, I still reside in Camelot at Arthur’s side.”  
  
“And you don’t see how that’s wrong?”  
  
“They were accusing you!” She looks at you with such rage and loyalty; a feral dog beseeching its beloved owner. “I wasn’t about to stand by and watch!”  
  
“You can’t just go around stealing peoples’ minds from them! It’s monstrous.”  
  
“I had to.” She’s looking at you with a none-too-winning mix of bewilderment and disdain, as if she genuinely cannot fathom why you’d protest.  
  
You knew. You knew very well that she is not the way she once was, that she’s _dangerous_. And yet you let yourself forget.  
  
You can no longer afford that luxury.  
  
“And I suppose that’s what you told yourself when you did it to Lancelot?” you say sharply. “To me?”  
  
Morgana looks at you as if you _have_ hit her, but you’re too angry to dissolve into apologies the way you would have before. It feels good, watching the hurt dawn on her face. Because some cruel part of you has been itching to hurt someone. Because it’s a relief to know that there is enough heart left in her to hurt her at all.  
  
“It’s so good to see you again, my dear,” Hunith says as you two enter the cottage, clasping Morgana’s hand in her own. Morgana looks startled by the contact, and for a moment you’re sure she will shake Merlin’s mother off. But then she recovers – she always was graceful with admirers. “So the King sent you?”  
  
“Gwen sent word, and I came as quickly as I could, upon Arthur’s orders. Not that he could have stopped me if he’d wanted to,” she adds with a sly grin. Hunith smiles, charmed. You feel suddenly sick, watching Morgana step back into the role of the girl she once was. She is almost perfect at it – close enough that no one else here will ever notice a difference.  
  
But only ‘almost,’ to you. You knew her best.  
  
“And do you think you’ll be able to help her?” Hunith continues.  
  
“I’ve been studying medicine under Gaius when my spare time allows it,” Morgana replies. “I’m nowhere near as gifted as he is, of course, but the poor old man did not feel up to the journey, and he seemed to think the time had come to test what I’ve learned.”  
  
Her hatred of Gaius glints brightly in the sweetened syllables; it reminds you of that not-quite-right smile she always wore, in that last year in Camelot after her time away with Morgause. You assumed then that she had been hurt more badly than she could confess, and could not quite remember how to be kind. How your heart would ache for her, even when she looked at you like a stranger, put that too-shining smile on. You’ve always had such a troublesome tendency toward thinking the best of her.  
  
“Do you think medicine stands a chance against magic?” Hunith asks.  
  
“I think it may. I know I can try,” Morgana answers, so earnest and stubborn (so _Morgana_ ) that you yearn to throw something at her. Scream and scream until she stops using your dead best friend as a mask to hide behind.  
  
“Did Merlin send any word?” It comes back to you at the sound of Hunith’s careful words – Merlin.  
  
Merlin, and magic.  
  
“He sends his love,” Morgana answers smoothly, “and hopes for my success.”  
  
“But he did not come.”  
  
“You know men.” Morgana laughs – her airy banquet laugh. “Especially royal ones. So very busy with the business of kings. And, well, the polishing of kings’ boots, in Merlin’s case. It seems Arthur just couldn’t spare him.”  
  
“Ah,” Hunith says softly. You watch as the news of her son’s new lack of concern settles into her. You wonder what Morgana will do if she ever finds out what you are just beginning to know about Merlin. You shiver.  
  
“I promise I’ll do all I can,” Morgana adds, gentle and earnest, taking Hunith’s hand in hers this time.  
  
“Of course,” Hunith says, and presses a hand to Morgana’s cheek. “But look at you, dear. You’re a wreck.”  
  
“I saw no point in wasting fine dresses on such an arduous journey,” Morgana answers with a self-deprecating smile. You wonder if she means to torture you right now.  
  
“Hunith,” you interrupt, deciding to put an end to it, “if you’d like to go sit with Mary and Alec, I’ll prepare supper.”  
  
“Oh, Gwen, I couldn’t ask you to—”  
  
“Please,” you interrupt firmly. “I know you bring them such comfort; surely they could use extra, after Alec took that fall.”  
  
“Poor man,” Hunith says. “I’ve never known a stronger one. If you’d told me before today that he could faint, I wouldn’t have believed you.”  
  
“No one is built to endure the suffering of their children,” you say.  
  
“Yes.” Hunith smiles, wistful.  
  
“A visit from you would do them good. You can tell them of Morgana’s arrival, and what she means to do for Alice.”  
  
“Yes,” Hunith agrees after a moment. “Yes, all right.”  
  
“Send them my love,” Morgana orders after Hunith, just as the door is closing.  
  
As soon as it shuts, you turn to her, and decide, for perhaps the first time in your life, that kindness is overrated. “Laying it on a little thick, aren’t you?”  
  
“What do you mean?” Morgana asks, sounding genuinely puzzled. You suppose she must be used to it, having spent a whole year lying to all of you without a second thought.  
  
It suddenly seems very pointless to pursue this conversation.  
  
“Nothing.” You toss an apple to her, harder than one usually tends to toss apples, and feel a surge of disappointment when she catches it neatly. “Here, eat this. You’re shaking.”  
  
“You’re displeased with me.”  
  
“I’m afraid of you.”  
  
“Why?” You turn your thoughts to supper, abandoning her for the larder. She follows you, oblivious. “Gwen, surely you must know I would never hurt you.”  
  
“Oh, yes, surely,” you mock, and try your hardest to contemplate potatoes with utmost concentration. A few are beginning to sprout.  
  
“I mean it,” Morgana insists. You know it must incense her to talk to your back. “I came all this way to save you. I dreamt– and the second I knew you were in danger, I swore I wouldn’t let it happen, I swore you wouldn’t— Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve felt that? Ever since Morgause died, I’ve had no one save for that idiot Agravaine; do you know how it felt, to have him bring me news of you and Arthur and Merlin, carrying on together as you always had, you and Arthur so in love, Merlin so loyal, while I sat in that godforsaken hovel alone, month after month—”  
  
“My heart breaks for you,” you snap, digging out potato sprouts with your fingernails. “Truly.”  
  
“You can’t imagine what it was like.”  
  
“No, I can’t. I can’t imagine being so selfish.”  
  
“Those people would have seen me dead if they knew what I really was!”  
  
“Or so your sister taught you.”  
  
Her hand is on your shoulder in an instant, stronger than you remember (then again, she was always so soft with you before; she had no reason not to be). The potatoes fall to the floor with dull dead thuds. She whirls you around to face her. You think for a second of Arthur, yelling, shaking you. This hurts less, somehow, and feels truer. Morgana’s eyes are bright with anger, not quite sane. Inviting, as a flame is.  
  
“Don’t you dare speak ill of her.” Morgana keeps one hand on your shoulder and puts the other against the wall, trapping you between her arms. “Don’t you dare.”  
  
You allow yourself to linger for a moment, so that she can realize just where she is, and why.  
  
“Ah yes,” you say then, carefully. “Of course you’d never hurt me.”  
  
Morgana freezes. Realizing where and why. Then her face crumples, and she starts crying.  
  
You’ve always had a knack for comforting crying people (especially her, once), but this—  
  
This is beyond your expertise.  
  
“You don’t know,” she sobs. “You don’t know what it feels like. I’m going mad, Gwen, I swear it. Everything is too much, and I left the bracelet behind because I knew, I knew you were right, that the nightmares are a part of me and I was a fool to push them down for so long, but I can’t sleep and I can’t think, and I’m going mad, I know it. I’m not strong enough for this, and if you ever tell anyone—you can’t tell anyone—”  
  
It isn’t quite a hug: it’s more that she collapses against you, and you’re not left with much choice but to turn it into one. Her shoulder blades are too sharp underneath your hands. You wonder if she has let herself go to skin and bones beneath those ratty, ugly black dresses. You wonder if Agravaine has ever reminded her to eat.  
  
“I won’t tell,” you capitulate at last, though you make sure not to sound too sorry for her.  
  
She looks up at you, still shaking, her face streaked with tears. She does not look beautiful at all, for once.  
  
“When have I ever told?” you add impatiently. “Your secrets are always safe with me, Morgana. Now, go on, then. Eat something.”  
  
You guide her to your bed; she sits obediently, still crying a little. When you hand her the apple again, she stares at it like she has no idea what it might be for.  
  
“You can’t carry on like this,” you tell her, stern. “Not here and now. You owe these people. You have a curse to break. Either that, or a promise.”  
  
“I’m through with breaking promises,” she replies, steeliness sneaking through her tears, “thank you very much.”  
  
You smooth her hair out of her eyes. It seems you’ll never be able to quite shake the maidservant out of you. Then you issue a dare. “Prove it.”  
  
She meets your eyes. Nods, just barely, and bites into the apple at last.


	3. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgana has a chat with evil. It proves enlightening.

_Morgana_  
  
You're the first to awaken in the morning. The sound of soft, even breathing pulls you out of sleep, and for a moment your heart lurches. You sit up fast (practically a tradition, at this point), and there are Gwen and Hunith. You remember.  
  
You mean to settle back down into bed -- yesterday's long journey has left your limbs aching -- but then you really look at Gwen. She's settled herself onto the floor, curled into a modest ball with one tattered blanket pulled up over her. You have taken her bed, you realize. It ought to have dawned on you sooner. It appears you weren't quite in your right mind yesterday.  
  
 _Always the servant,_  you think, watching her. She sleeps as quietly and inoffensively as she does everything else. Does she ever dream? You wonder.  
  
You get up, making as little noise as you can. The bed you took isn't much to lament the loss of: a lumpy, makeshift mattress. You remember Merlin saying that he always slept on the floor, growing up. You like the idea of that. His gangly bones pressing into the dirt.  
  
He would surely be dismayed, if he knew you are here right now. Mere feet from his beloved mother. Breathing his air. Stepping on the ghosts of his gangly sleeping bones.  
  
You smile a little.  
  
Gwen makes a little waking sound, an insignificant 'mmm,' and turns over. It pulls you back to her. You can see her face now, and are happy that you have the time to look. For the longest time, you never thought anything of it: she was your maid, your dearest companion, and of course you had the right to stare at her with as much open love as you wanted to. She always seemed so happy to receive it. She brought you flowers; sometimes you would look out the window and see her down below, just a flash of red or yellow in the field, contemplating carefully which petals might be the most worthy of your table. This would always make you smile, watching her. Knowing she would knock on your door soon, and step into the room like sunshine. She could have brought you weeds and your heart still would have sung odes to them.  
  
Until -- something. The nightmares. Arthur, and his stupid selfish longing glances.  
  
Ah yes, what a gallant lover he was. Throwing Gwen aside like nothing at the first suggestion that he was not the center of her world. You thank God you were the one to throw him aside before he had the chance to do it to you. At least you gave him one good heartbreak.  
  
 _Two,_  you amend, thinking of Uther.  
  
But this is something you never allow yourself to do for long, and so you sink down (quietly, quietly; fortunately, it's quite hard for a floor to creak when it's made of dirt) for a closer look at Gwen. You could reach out and touch her -- just touch her face, the way she would touch yours to help you shake the nightmares off. You don't.  
  
If she does have nightmares, are you the stuff of them?  
  
Looking at her tranquil face now, you suddenly recall her anger yesterday. How furious she was over a little spell that could hurt no one. She does not know you at all, anymore. She hasn't a clue how thoroughly you could have hurt them. Morgause told you of magics so potent they could kill a whole village in one of those white, clean flashes. You are not quite that strong, not yet, but you've never been one to shy away from trying.  
  
You only made them forget, which is nothing. A blessing. You rather wish you had the luxury of joining them, and forgetting too.  
  
It felt like forgetting, a little -- to slip right back into your old self. To these people, you are the king's beloved ward. Arthur's beloved almost-sister. The closest thing to a hero that a woman can ever dream of being.  
  
Maybe if you put that mask on long enough, and well enough, Gwen will start to believe you. And if Gwen believes you, then perhaps it will even turn true.  
  
But Gwen never will, is the fact of it. You slammed her against the wall. You cried like an idiot child in front of her. And all after you swore to protect her. To Gwen, that is what your vows are good for.  
  
 _She makes you weak,_ says one of the little voices in your head. It sounds like Morgause and Uther and the strongest version of yourself, all at once. A little chorus, chiming out.  
  
You contemplate her dark curls, a little messy with sleep. Her skin. Her eyelids, her lashes. Her mouth, whose smiles you will have to work for.  
  
Might as well smash her skull and be done with it. This stupid yearning would die along with her. You could lick her blood off your fingers and finally call yourself queen.  
  
Like she hears it, Gwen opens her eyes. She jumps a little, and only that makes you notice how close you've come to her. "Morgana!"  
  
The sound of her voice is all it takes. Here you are, beside her, and your head is playing tricks, that's all, just like it's always done. You feel like you could cry again, hating this stupid monster in you.  
  
 _Chin up, child,_  says one of the no ones in your head, using Uther's voice.  _You're made of stronger stuff than that._  
  
"Good morning," you tell her, and smile, and rise.  
  
  
+  
  
  
The hollowed out child looks up at you with an utter lack of curiosity when you enter her family's cottage. You've come armed with a cup; it holds a concoction of herbs from Hunith's pantry that will do nothing more drastic than relieve a stomachache. This is not a matter of tinctures. This will be simpler and harder than that, but you have no intention of explaining that to the bystanders. Gwen trails behind you, her expression worried.  
  
"Hello, Alice," you say, crouching down in front of the thoroughly disinterested girl. You feel a flicker of recogntion looking at her, and not just from the dream that led you here. You were like this once; a girl in a room, only able to stare at nothing. "My name is Morgana."  
  
The girl's eyes wander to you, seemingly by chance. As soon as her gaze meets yours, though, it is like key meeting lock. You feel it.  
  
 _'And secretly, she just wanted to kill us all the while, and eat our hearts!'_  comes a child's voice; a peal of laughter chases after it. Her lips don't move.  
  
Your heart pounding, you turn back to look at Gwen, at the girl's parents. They continue to watch with anxious but unshaken faces.  
  
So it's only you, then.  
  
No matter. You've got experience in that department.  
  
"Will you drink this for me, please?" you request, willing your hands to stay steady. "I hope it will make you better."  
  
 _'I thought Emrys would come. I hoped and hoped. I've wanted to see his real face for so very long. But I got you instead. Don't you know I'm tired of you?'  
  
'Emrys has no business here,' _ you think. It seems to do the trick.  
  
 _'Liar.'_  
  
 _'Get out of her.'_  
  
 _'Don't be stupid, Morgana. Where else would I go? She called me here.'_  
  
 _'She's a child.'_  
  
 _'Children know enough to be cruel. Besides, I think she wants me to eat her heart.'_  
  
"Can you do anything?" the mother implores. "Can you--"  
  
"Shh!" you snap, and then remember yourself, just barely. "Please."  
  
Alice's mother obeys.  
  
Your new companion doesn't seem bothered by the interruption.  _'I feel him here. Emrys. Don't you? He's everywhere.'  
  
'If he does show up, I'll make him very sorry that he did.'  
  
'That's silly! He got here first.'  
  
'What do you mean?'  
  
'Surely you must know, you stupid girl. The ghosts of his bones are on the floor. He even killed you once.'_  
  
You freeze. Alice's eyes flick to the cup in your hand.  
  
 _'Please, don't make me drink it. You know what always happens.'_  
  
But the body can't do anything, save for remaining still, and so you bring the cup to her lips and tilt it forward. As you do, your thumb brushes the child's face. The touch shocks through you, dazzling and hard.  
  
Alice coughs, spitting all over you. You cannot bring yourself to mind much.  
  
"Who are you?" she asks, her eyes belonging to her again.  
  
"A friend," you say.  
  
That seems to be explanation enough for her. She looks right past you. "Mum? Papa?"  
  
"Oh, sweetheart," her mother cries, and then you are brushed aside as her parents sweep her up. The love and the joy is so thick anyone could choke on it.  
  
"Thank you," her father says, recalling your existence long enough to clasp your hand. Never mind that he would have happily watched you burn yesterday. "Thank you, milady--"  
  
"It's nothing," you say, "truly."  
  
"We'll just give you some time together," Gwen adds kindly, and guides you out.  
  
The sunlight is terribly bright and unforgiving. Nearly white. White as an old man's beard. Merlin with an old man's beard -- could anything be sillier?  
  
"All it took was a touch?" Gwen says, sounding skeptical.  
  
You find this isn't your foremost concern.  
  
"What do you know about Merlin?" you ask her.  
  
The truth. You see it right away, though Gwen recovers fast. "What do you mean?"  
  
"Don't lie to me," you order, stepping in closer, lowering your voice. "He has magic."  
  
"I don't know," Gwen insists. "I don't. I only just started suspecting. I never saw anything that-- and wait, how do you know? Did -- did Alice tell you, somehow? You were hearing something the rest of us weren't, I could tell-- Morgana--"  
  
"Arthur's most trusted friend is a sorcerer." You are practically giddy. "Right there in Camelot. Serving at his side, for years."  
  
"We can't talk about this here," Gwen hisses. Oh, Gwen. Always ever so sensible. It would take far more than the world crashing down to addle her.  
  
She drags you into the chicken coop; her strong grip around your arm seems the only thing that's tethering you to this world. You would like to float away into this new knowledge. To let it eat you up. Merlin. Merlin! Then again, it's hard to float away in a chicken coop. It's barely big enough to fit the both of you, and smells like the bowels of hell besides. The hens all cluck indignantly. You laugh and laugh, thinking of Merlin and Emrys, an old man and a boy, your fate and your killer. There is a very good joke hidden in there somewhere. You're sure of it. He knocked all the air out of your lungs and left you to die on a forest floor. He held you close while you shook with death, and would not let you go.  
  
"That boy! That  _boy_ ! I should have known it, I suppose. He did kill me, after all. That suggests a certain darkness not belonging to most servant boys. Don't you agree?"  
  
"How can you know it's true?" Gwen says. "Alice was cursed. There isn't much sense in believing a curse--"  
  
"It wasn't just a curse," you protest. "It was a -- spirit. A something. Quite an infuriating conversationalist, too. It seemed to know me very well."  
  
"It's lying to you, Morgana. It's playing some game--"  
  
"So you don't think Merlin is a sorcerer?"  
  
"I think that Merlin is the one to ask about that."  
  
"Well, there's a fine chance of that, considering you've been banished from Camelot on pain of death. I'm sure he'd love it if you popped in for a chat. Make sure to give Arthur a little hello kiss before he burns you at the stake for deplorable acts of wanton independence--"  
  
"Stop."  
  
"Do you know, when Merlin came to torment me -- destinies do that, you see, and he is my destiny and my doom, I was told; isn't that nice? -- it was always under the guise of an old man. That old sorcerer! Surely you know him. Didn't Uther try to burn him at the stake once? Yes -- yes, he did! To save you! That's right! How chivalrous."  
  
"To save me from you, I imagine."  
  
"Guilty. Ah, so he must be a good sorcerer, mustn't he? Sworn to protect Camelot from its destroyers. The savior of virtuous maidens and prat-headed princes."  
  
"Yes, that's enough, thank you," Gwen says. Sensible, sensible Gwen. "Now come on, Morgana--"  
  
"But it's not enough, you see," you interrupt her. Most discourteously. "He found out. He found out about me, years and years ago. He  _knew_ , he was the only one who knew, and I trusted him with it, he was the only one I had to trust. And he could have told me he was the same. If I had known he was the same, I--"  
  
You stop. The smell in here really is ungodly. You think you might faint, or die.  
  
Gwen tilts your chin up with one finger, forcing you to meet her eyes.  
  
"What's done is done," she says, quiet and firm, "and you can't go back."  
  
It's almost enough.  
  
"Arthur needs to know," you insist. "He needs to know the truth."  
  
"It's not our truth to tell," Gwen says, with such wise conviction that you believe her for a moment.  
  
But then you think of Merlin: standing in your doorway, sweet and kind and lying through his teeth. Laughing at you in his head, maybe. One sorcerer in the castle was all well and good -- Arthur might be persuaded, on some far off dream of a day, to have faith in one -- but  _two,_  and one of them a woman? Now, that would never do. You think of Merlin watching you, after your year away, like you were some creature of unfathomable wickedness. Something to be destroyed. Or maybe just a mere obstacle to be moved out of the way.  
  
"It may not be your truth to tell, but it is certainly mine," you decide. (How Arthur's heart will break, to be betrayed twice like this. And what a poor king he will look, once the word gets out -- and the word will get out. You'll make sure of that. Why, he'll have no choice but to have the boy executed publically. Excitement thrums through you. You could sing.) "Alice has been saved. Ealdor is out of danger. I'm going to Camelot. You may accompany me, if you wish."  
  
"I don't wish!" Gwen says, laughing incredulously. "Morgana, this is madness. For one thing, how can we be certain the curse is broken? You don't even know what it was. For another, we're both as good as dead the second we set foot there. How do you even plan to--"  
  
"They won't hurt you," you say. "I'll kill the first man who tries, and all the ones who come after him, if any are foolish enough to follow suit. And as for me, I can take care of myself."  
  
Gwen lifts her eyebrows. "Can you?"  
  
It is, you'll admit (to yourself), a fair point.  
  
"If you're there," you add, and the hope in your voice isn't even something you planned.  
  
"I'm not going with you," Gwen declares, arms folded over her chest in a stance of utmost determination.  
  
You tilt your head, ever so slightly.  
  
"I'm not," she says again. She moves to cross her arms, realizes they are crossed already, and settles for putting her hands on her hips instead.  
  
You give her the sweetest and most imploring of smiles.  
  
"Morgana," she says, "I'm  _not._ "  
  
  
  
  
 _Gwen_  
  
And, well. It's not as if your mad, still-at-least-slightly-evil wicked witch of a best friend who's hell-bent on some sort of tattle tale vengeance can exactly be expected to look after herself, now, can she?


End file.
